THE PARISH OF ST. CUTHBERT PORTSEA - ANNUAL REPORT 2021 (Includes St. Cuthbert, Copnor & St. Aidan, Anchorage Park) ## **Annual Report** ## **of the** ## **Parochial Church Council** **For the Year ended 31st December 2021** 1 THE PARISH OF ST. CUTHBERT PORTSEA - ANNUAL REPORT 2021 ## **Administrative Information** St. Cuthbert’s Church is situated in Copnor. St. Aidan's Church was 'planted' on the new housing development of Anchorage Park to the North of the parish in 1992. We are part of the Diocese of Portsmouth within the Church of England. The Parish office is c/o The Vicarage, 2 Lichfield Road, Copnor Portsmouth, PO3 6DE. Our Parish Administrator works from her home. ## **During the year the following served as ex-officio PCC members:** **Incumbent:** The Revd. Allie Kerr, Chairman **Asst Priest:** The Revd. Carol Gully **Curate:** The Revd. Rajiv Sidhu **Reader:** Richard Shurmer ## **Churchwardens:** Anne Gard _(from 2016)_ Sally Harry _(from 2020)_ ## **Deanery Synod Representatives:** Steven McDermott Adrian Kerr ## **Elected Members:** Mary Bish, Jerry Brushwood, Malcolm Clubley, Joanne Greening ( _St. Aidan’s Church_ ), Bev Hill (safeguarding Rep), Martine Hebblethwaite, Noreen Jeffery, Richard Martin, Lauren McDermott _,_ David Stemp, Sue Walker, Sue Wells (safeguarding Rep). 2 THE PARISH OF ST. CUTHBERT PORTSEA - ANNUAL REPORT 2021 ## **Co-opted Members:** Treasurer: Alan Phillips ## **Committees** The PCC was supported by the following committees: Standing Committee Finance Team St. Aidan’s Committee Youth and Children’s work Team Safeguarding Team Pastoral Care Team Fabric Team The method of appointment of PCC members is set out in the Church Rules. All Church attendees are Representation encouraged to register on the Electoral Roll. Members are eligible for, and invited to stand for, election to the PCC. ## **Aims and purposes** St. Cuthbert’s Parochial Church Council (PCC) has the responsibility of working with the incumbent in promoting the ecclesiastical parish, the whole mission of the Church, pastoral, evangelistic, social and ecumenical. ## **Objectives and Activities** To worship God, personally and corporately; to make known the good news of Christ; to serve those in need, locally and globally; and to continue to grow as a loving, open Christian community, filled with the Holy Spirit. The PCC is committed to enabling as many people as possible to worship at our church and to become part of our parish community at St. Cuthbert and St. Aidan. The PCC maintains 3 THE PARISH OF ST. CUTHBERT PORTSEA - ANNUAL REPORT 2021 an overview of worship throughout the parish and makes suggestions on our services. Our services and worship put the Christian faith into practice through prayer and scripture, music and sacrament. When planning our activities for the year, we have considered the Commission’s guidance on public benefit and, in particular, the supplementary guidance on charities for the advancement of religion. In particular, we try to enable our members to live out their faith as part of our parish community through: - Worship and prayer; learning about the Gospel; and developing their knowledge of and trust in Jesus. - Provision of pastoral care for people living in the parish. Mission and outreach work. To facilitate this work it is essential that we maintain the fabric of the Church of St. Cuthbert Portsea. ## **Achievements and Performance** ## **Worship and Prayer** The PCC is keen to offer a range of services during the week and over the course of the year which bring glory to God and which our community finds both beneficial and spiritually nourishing. All are welcome to attend our regular services. At the beginning of March 2022 there were 128 parishioners on the Church Electoral Roll. ## **Deanery Synod** The members who sit on the Deanery Synod are as stated in the details of PCC members. This provides the PCC with an 4 THE PARISH OF ST. CUTHBERT PORTSEA - ANNUAL REPORT 2021 important link between the parish and the wider structures of the church. ## **Review of the Year 2021** This year started with the Covid pandemic still dominating our thinking and restrictions governing all we could do. The church re-opened on Easter day with 2 services to limit the number of people in the church at once. Signing in for services and keeping a record of who attended our churches, wearing masks, anti-bac hand gel and social distancing became routine. The number of services, meetings and group activities gradually increased as restrictions were eased and vaccinations became effective at lowering the number of cases of Covid. At the time of writing (March 2021) we are nearly back to normal. Church chat continues, nearly to its 100[th] edition and is still emailed to over 100 people and delivered to those with no access to the internet. In the last months some new groups have been started to help people recover from the pandemic. Two of these groups include Play and Stay for babies and their carers who had limited social interaction while isolating at home and a drop-in bereavement group. Both of these groups continue to run in 2022, the play and stay being particularly popular. A Youth Club Café for teenagers meets every fortnight, a games evening has been started each month and the Encounter Café type Church is held once a month too. All these ventures are hopefully bringing in new people to our churches as part of our mission outreach. Services continue to be streamed on Facebook, You Tube and our own website. A major development in St. Cuthbert’s during the year was the dissolving of St. Cuthbert’s Trust who ran the Community centre. This became inevitable as income disappeared during the lockdown for the pandemic. The PCC agreed to write off the money owed by the Trust to the church so that the centre 5 ## THE PARISH OF ST. CUTHBERT PORTSEA - ANNUAL REPORT 2021 would not go bankrupt and we would have lost all the equipment in the centre and faced a large bill for legal services. We were sad to see all the staff leave, which now means that volunteers from St Cuthbert’s have taken over the running of the centre. This has involved taking bookings, ensuring groups renting rooms can get in or out of the building, all cleaning and health and safety checks and including the finances in the church accounts. This is now done by a few dedicated individuals and is working well. Operations and Governance groups were formed to oversee these arrangements and it is generally assumed that we now run the entire building as one, combining the centre and church in finances, cleaning and organisation etc. Another accomplishment during the year has been the transferring of all the Audio/Visual equipment onto the balcony. It has been improved and developed so our services can be live streamed and so that we can use a screen for all the orders of services. The sound production has also improved with new speakers. The organ which we had looked after for several years was finally removed and a replacement remains a possibility if we can find an organist or key board player to use it. A major subject for discussion at PCC has been the proposal by the Diocese to restructure parishes so they can work more collaboratively. The Arch Deacon and a consultant came to a PCC meeting to explain the proposals. We were partnered with the North End parishes and met at a deanery synod meeting and a social gathering to try and get to know each as a start to the process. It would also involve a reorganisation of the staff of the included churches. This project has now been put on hold, waiting for the new Bishop and more consultation. In June, Rajiv Sidhu joined us as a newly ordained Deacon. Unfortunately, in this new year it was decided that he would move to St Mary’s Church which might prove to be a better fit for his ministry and his family. We thank him for all the work he contributed while he was with us. 6 ## THE PARISH OF ST. CUTHBERT PORTSEA - ANNUAL REPORT 2021 St Aidan’s continues to be a major part of our parish and its congregation remain faithful to making sure there is a Christian presence in Anchorage Park. They had several extra restrictions to overcome as the pandemic lessened, because The Lodge is owned by the council. Holy Communion and Morning Prayer are now regularly held each Sunday. A new sound system has been bought for St Aidan’s to use each week. They have been involved in a Community Café which successfully meets monthly in The Lodge. A noteworthy event for St Aidan’s was the wedding of two elderly members of their congregation who got married in September. A lovely service. A significant part of St. Cuthbert’s life is the café held in the church each weekday morning serving drinks and snacks. A large group of volunteers help to run it and support with shopping etc. Customers have become regulars and members of the different groups meeting in the community rooms often come down for refreshments after their activity in the centre. A fayre was eventually held in October and the Christmas Tree Festival also took place as planned after missing in the previous year. Both were well attended and it was good to welcome back the people from our parish and community. At PCC meetings we have now decided to have reports from our different groups to keep us all up to date with what is happening in our churches. In the future we are looking to improve our communication through all methods, both via social media online and advertising through posters etc. We are hoping that plans for the Diocese to employ an Operation Manager for 6 months will help us with this in this coming year as Rev Allie Kerr helps them with becoming the Acting Arch Deacon of the Isle of Wight. The Church Wardens would like to thank all the volunteers who work in the church and all the support they have been given in the past year and we look forward to the coming year with expectation of God working amongst us and the community around us. ## **Anne Gard and Sally Harry** 7 THE PARISH OF ST. CUTHBERT PORTSEA - ANNUAL REPORT 2021 ## **Church Wardens** ## **Additional Church Wardens Report and Fabric Report** In 2021 the building, our church, is constantly being reviewed from the point of maintenance and reacting to problems as they occur .Small issues are constantly dealt with. The most notable incident we had was the massive leak that flooded the church near the Lichfield Rd side near the vicarage. This was repaired and has not leaked since. We still need ongoing roof repairs and await tenders from the architect. We are also keeping an eye on the stained glass window as water seeps through from that area at times. We hired a scissor lift, and the stonework (high sills) were inspected and repaired as a small lump had fallen off. Fortunately no major problems were found. Cabling was installed at a high level for the sound system and microphones were installed either side of the Altar. A new boiler has been installed in the Wells-Smith room which supplies all hot water on the second floor. The harmony suite is now used mainly for Church activities and is not rented out solely for one user. Maintaining the community areas for the public is quite a task and we welcome all input. Those of you who use the internet will know that it has been much improved throughout the whole building. The balcony preparation, included power points, lighting, fitted desks and a new step to the raised floor. The sound system cupboard (adjacent to the messy church cupboard) was also fitted with power and shelving to accommodate the old sound unit and includes remote power switches for the balcony and the new TV screen. The loop system was moved to this new position. ## **Anne Gard and Sally Harry Church Wardens** 8 THE PARISH OF ST. CUTHBERT PORTSEA - ANNUAL REPORT 2021 ## **Financial Report 2021** This report supports the Financial Statements for the year as presented at the APCM on 13th March 2022 (following approval by the PCC at the PCC meeting held on 17[th] February 2022). If 2020 was a year dominated by Covid, then to a lesser extent this was also true of 2021. However what was of more note financially was the sad demise of the Trust. Despite their best efforts the Trust came to the conclusion that they needed to wind up their activities. There were 2 routes to enable this. One would require a formal entry into Administration with the appointment of an Administrator entailing a long-winded process to consider what assets could be used to match Creditors demands. Payment of Creditors when finalised would almost certainly show a return of only a few pence in the £. The other more simple route was to close the Trust but as a debt free body. To facilitate this latter option the PCC would need to agree to write off 2 items of finance – firstly, all bills due to the PCC but which were unpaid by the Trust (£6,251.55) [these are shown under Item 3e of the Accounts], and also, more notably, the outstanding loans made by the PCC to the Trust to enable the Trust to complete all refurbishment works associated with the redevelopment of the building (£39,009.25) – [this is shown as a separate item in the SOFA summary]. These 2 amounts total £45,260.80. The write off of these amounts was agreed by the PCC and of course this decision does have an effect on the Annual Accounts. It should be borne in mind however, that in practice we do not have less money at present but of course we lose the prospect of gaining these monies at some future dates. 9 ## THE PARISH OF ST. CUTHBERT PORTSEA - ANNUAL REPORT 2021 Overall, the Accounts show a loss for the year but if the Trust one-off payments detailed above, are set aside, then a surplus of over £5,000 was achieved. Much of this was due to the successful takeover of the running of the Centre with effect from 1[st] June. Thanks to the hard work of the team of volunteers, the Centre remained open to the public and this enabled us to gain income through room hire and also the new 5 day café. The profit from these activities was £5,322. Looking solely at the Church figures ie. omitting the Centre’s financial activities, the picture shows a broad “break-even” position – in reality a small deficit of £158. It should be borne in mind however that the PCC bank balance as at the end of 2021 shows a positive amount of £33,851. Another factor to bear in mind is that in 2021 due to Covid, there was just the one Fayre. It would be a reasonable assumption that each of our Fayres usually raises around £2,000. Looking at Income and Expenditure in more detail: ## Income The summary provided in the SOFA part of the Accounts shows Income of £129,521 (£109,792 in 2020). This can be split: Church Income: £83,630 (£82,219) Centre Income: £18,237 ( N/A) AIB Loan: £27,655 (£27,659) As will be seen 2021 was similar to 2020 other than the additional income arising from the Centre and Café activities. ## Expenditure 10 THE PARISH OF ST. CUTHBERT PORTSEA - ANNUAL REPORT 2021 Again, looking at the SOFA summary, Expenditure in 2021 was £169,614 (£109,829 in 2020). This can be split: Church Expenditure: £129,043 (£82,219) – Including Trust write-off Church Expenditure: £ 83,782 (£82,219) – Excluding Trust write-off Centre Expenditure: £ 12,915 ( N/A) AIB Loan: £ 27,655 (£ 27,611) Again, as with our Income, “normal” Expenditure was much in line with 2020 Expenditure. ## Allied Irish Bank Whilst the main purpose of these notes is to inform/explain items that directly relate to the church. It would be amiss however not to comment on our loan with Allied Irish Bank (AIB). This loan was taken out in 2008 to enable the completion of refurbishment work. It is secured against the quarterly rental payments received from the Surgery (the surgery is in effect a tenant). The amount outstanding as at 31/12/2021 was £153,786.50. To give a flavour of progress in paying this loan off: 31/12/2018: £221,853 31/12/2019: £200,259 31/12/2020: £177,351 31/12/2021: £153,786 It is anticipated that the loan will be fully paid off in 2028. There are some variables to this assumption – in particular interest rates are starting to increase. However, the surgery 11 THE PARISH OF ST. CUTHBERT PORTSEA - ANNUAL REPORT 2021 rent is subject to a 3 year review and discussions are currently ongoing regarding possible increases for 2017 and 2020. It is not anticipated that these will show any sizeable increases but it will nonetheless help the overall picture. When the loan is paid off the rental income will be ours to use as we wish. ## Looking Ahead We can expect to have greater income as we return to our two Fayres a year and also, with the Centre in mind, - the benefit of a full year’s room hire income rather than the 6 months in 2021. In addition, the gradual decline of the Covid effect should hopefully see some growth. In terms of expenditure, some will be under our control ie. spending we agree to undertake but as always there is the unknown factor. The building is not getting any younger and from time to time facilities will need replacement or repair. Maintaining a healthy bank balance is therefore essential. There is also the question of the roof repairs. We are working with our Architects to obtain the necessary tenders but this may take time. Once we have that information we will plan how to finance the work but it is hoped that much of the cost will be borne by grants. ## Reserves policy: The reserves policy of the PCC is incorporated in a note to the accounts. It is our aim to try and maintain a balance on unrestricted funds of around £3,000. If possible this balance would be in addition to that required to meet all outstanding costs and be available to cover emergency situations that may arise from time to time. The Reserve was fully maintained throughout 2021. ## Examination of the Accounts: 12 # THE PARISH OF ST. CUTHBERT PORTSEA - ANNUAL REPORT 2021 The accounts have been reviewed an by Independent Examiner. ## **Alan Phillips - Treasurer** 13 ## **Independent examiners report to the PCC of St Cuthbert’s, Portsmouth on the Accounts for year ended 31[st] December 2021** The report on the financial statements of the PCC for the year ended 31[st] December 2021, which is set out in the Annual Report, has been carried out in accordance with the Church Accounting Regulations 2006 and s.43 of the Charities Act 1993. ## **Respective responsibilities of the PCC and Examiner** As members of the PCC you are responsible for the preparation of financial statements and you consider that the audit requirement of the Regulations and s43(2) does not apply. It is my responsibility to issue this report on those financial statements in accordance with the terms of the Regulations. ## **Basis of this report** My examination has been carried out in accordance with the General Directions given by the Charity Commission under s.43(7)(b) of the Act and to be found in the Church guidance dated 2006. That examination includes a review of the accounting records kept by the PCC and a comparison of the accounts with the records. It also includes considering any unusual items or disclosures in the financial statements and seeking explanations from you as Trustees concerning any such matters. The procedures undertaken do not provide all the evidence in an audit, and consequently do not express and audit opinion on the view given by the accounts. ## **Independent examiners statement** In connection with my examination, no matter has come to my attention: Which gives me reasonable cause to believe that, in any material respect, the requirements; - ●To keep accounting records in accordance with section 41 of the Act; to prepare statements which accord with the accounting records and comply with the requirements of the Act and the Regulations; have not been met. - ●Or to which to which, in my opinion, attention should be drawn in order to enable a proper understanding of the accounts to be reached. **Note:** In view of Covid 19 restrictions the examination this year has been carried out remotely. However this had not impacted upon the investigations and my satisfaction with the Accounts for the year ended 31st December 2021. ## **Douglas Sanders CPFA (Retired) 33 Elderfield Close, Emsworth, Hampshire, PO10 7QW** ## **1st February 2022**